1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fluid dispensing apparatus including a pump and more particularly to a fluid dispensing apparatus for adjustably metering a liquid between a liquid source such as a bottle and a dispensing nozzle. 2. Description of the Prior Art
The apparatus disclosed herein relates primarily to the dispensing of a metered amount of liquor in an automatic manner. Other of my inventions relating to the movement of liquor between a bottle and a consumer's glass may be viewed by reference to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,664,552 and 3,628,566 and co-pending application, Ser. No. 732,020, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,l48.
In view of the value of alchoholic beverages efforts have been made to control the amount of liquor which is dispensed for each drink prepared. In the past this was done by simply using uniformly sized glasses into which the liquor was poured. Liquor has also been metered by attaching a simple spout which pours a more or less constant amount each time the liquor bottle is inverted. Of course a readily apparent problem with either of the above techniques is that the liquor bottle must be handled each time a drink is prepared and the metering has not been very precise. In addition, an automatic count of each drink prepared was unattainable.
More recently, commercial establishments have sought devices which will improve the efficiency of the people employed to prepare drinks. One technique was to keep the bottle of liquor at a remote location and have the liquor pump through conduits to a more convenient hand held nozzle such as shown in the above mentioned patents and application.
While the remote placement of liquor bottles has proven to be more efficient than handling the bottle for each drink prepared, problems have developed relating to the design of suitable pump units. Prior art pumps have been unreliable, overly complicated in structure, difficult to clean and unsuited for convenient preventive maintenance. In an industry requiring efficiency and sanitary conditions these problems have been difficult to solve.